Can the All Blacks win a fourth Grand Slam?

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The All Blacks have never lost a pool match and I doubt it will happen in front of a home crowd. I can understand your theory about getting the disaster out of the way with when it's the non-knock out phase of the tournament but a loss never helps the All Blacks in the eyes of the NZ public. The pressure they might feel in front of a home ground would be a thousand fold if they were to lose in the pool stages. Besides, I don't buy that France can do it. It wasn't a particularly good All Black side that they beat last year and history shows that the All Blacks don't lose to France all that much in actuality. And who's to say that France will give us a game? Perhaps they'll be content finishing runner-up in the pool?

That's right, it is my view. And the view of every other person I have spoken to about the game. I dunno mate, to me it just smells of "well 7 will tie it up...that's not as bad as a loss" .... Personally, with the run of play they had, I would have slotted the 3 points and attacked for 3 or 4 minutes. But surely you agree the Welsh played for a draw a few years back?

No. In the pool match The AB's will not lose to France. Im certain of that. But the Knock out games are completely different and I would be very worried about playing France in one of these.

The odds are against it but the chance is certainly there. New Zealand have lost twice to France in World Cup matches and France notched a victory in NZ on their last tour. If the weight of expectation is going to cause problems for the All Blacks then it might just do so in their first big match up of the tournament (with all respect to Tonga, who play them in the opening game) when there's a chance they'll still be underdone. If they did lose that match then it would be almost a raging certainty that they would go on to take the trophy, having got their calamity out of the way when it wasn't fatal.

The All Blacks won't drop their pool game against France. There's next to no chance of that happening.

Lol! Why go such a convoluted route? Surely it would be much simpler if he just moved to Ireland and he could play anyway. Whether he'd be picked for Ireland is another question, but in theory yes. But then you can move anywhere, gain residency and be eligible. Look at wotsisface in the centre for England.

Makes sense. Better still, if mini tours are here to stay, then it surely it makes more sense for the Aussie or Kiwi second stringers to play, say, Romania or Georgia rather than Gloucester or Saracens. The Eastern Europeans would derive much more benefit from such a game than the GP clubs do. It might be awkward from a logistical perspective but then again Bucharest is closer to London than Perth is to Sydney.

NSW Waratahs toured the region under McKenzie a few seasons ago, so perhaps club/provincial/franchise development tours, or 'A' tours are the order of the day to begin with?

That is absolutely true, Seiran.

Isn't the Ireland team made up of two countries? Northern Ireland and Ireland? If a pacific islander moves to NI as a brit couldn't he then play for Ireland?

Eastern Europe? A noble suggestion, but complete pie in the sky.

I agree. I'd also drop the current notion of the Grand Slam Tour that confines it to test matches in Ireland and Great Britain. Stick midweek matches in there, and make the thing a bit more competitive, so that your entire squad has to achieve the thing, as opposed to just the matchday test 22. The France/Italy tour should definitely have club games on tour. And the Eastern Europe tour could have individual tests, plus a combined team test. That would change things up substantially.

You don't have to win seven games in a row to win the World Cup. No one has done it this way yet but it's possible to lose a group match and still make it through to the knock-out stages. It will probably happen some time. England already made two finals - in 1991 and 2007 - having dropped a match. Sod's Law means that might be the way NZ break their bogey next year. They could lose to France in their third Group A match then go on to knock everyone else over and take the title.

'As far as Nov goes I would have one SH team touring UK/Ireland attempting the grand slam, one team touring the continent playing France/Italy and maybe one touring eastern Europe. one of the 4 could rest. wishful thinking but I think it would keep things fresh.' I think that's an excellent idea.

Or we could see the first RWC where a team drops a game in the pool stages goes on to win the thing. I wouldn't be surprised if whoever loses NZ v France did this. Pothale, It's very laudable that the NH countries play more tests against tier 2 opposition. I think it should be mandatory that every Tier 1 nation plays at least one match against a Tier 2 nation (preferably from their region) each year as part of the annual test programme. So the 6 nations could play one match against a 6N B country in Nov, Aus/NZ could play a match against Tonga/Samoa/Fiji, South Africa could play Namibia, Argentina could play Uruguay/Chile in the lead up to the 4N. As far as Nov goes I would have one SH team touring UK/Ireland attempting the grand slam, one team touring the continent playing France/Italy and maybe one touring eastern Europe. one of the 4 could rest. wishful thinking but I think it would keep things fresh.

It wouldn't be the case if they had anything resembling an off-season, but come November they're eyeing that 2-3 week break before training begins for the Super 14. With the WC still a year away, I'm not sure how driven the All Blacks will be to succeed this year. The perfect preparation of 2005 and 2006 didn't help us in 2007 and if you look back on that 2008 season you could maybe argue that guys who played every Test like Woodcock and Ali Williams have never been the same since. In Williams' case, he hasn't played a Test match since. I assume that playing at home will be an advantage for the All Blacks. After all, they've only lost at home 13 times since the first World Cup. But it's a knock-out tournament and a different beast than the All Blacks are used to dealing with. The All Blacks can afford to lose a Tri-Nations game or two and come out on top, and even if they don't claim a GS the tour will still continue. It's really the knock-out nature of the WC that the All Blacks have to deal with because if you gave them a second chance at most WCs they might have claimed a few more. Can they win seven in a row? Somebody has to. That's my big question mark over Australia, incidently. Can the Wallabies really win seven games in a row? Perhaps it only boils down to three games in a row in the end, but the Wallabies have yet to go on any sort of significant winning streak under Deans.

Really? They didn't want to go on the tour at all. And they still won all their test matches? That's scary. What will they be like when they actually want to travel? Mind you, they don't have to for the WC. Will this be a huge advantage, OJ?

Matta - that's your view - which I think is a warped one. I haven't heard it expressed anywhere else in SH or NH media that Ireland played for a draw. They needed 7 points not 3 points to close the gap on Australia. Hopefully they would have time after for a penalty is another way of looking at it. If you think you've got a team under the cosh at a point in the match (and they did), and you're 7 points behind, and you've a choice to get a 7 pointer or 3 pointer, which do you take? I'd take the 7 pointer and look to get a penalty or drop goal after. I've seen Munster and latterly Leinster do that consistently in matches - forgo the penalty and go for the try. Tactically, you also have to consider that in taking just 3 points meant that Australia could just concentrate on defence only as they would still be ahead. Tieing up the match would mean they would have to chase the match again, and open up more attacking opportunities for Ireland. If anything, you might accuse them of arrogance in going for the bigger score, when a penalty might have been a better route to winning, but at no point, would I deem it going for a draw.

Is it really? I doubt very much that the players want to go on this tour. That was the overwhelming sentiment of the last Grand Slam tour.